KILCREGGAN'S ferry link with Gourock is not expected to resume until Monday, the operators have revealed.

MV Island Princess, operated by Clydelink on behalf of Strathclyde Passenger Transport (SPT), has been out of action since Monday, July 17 because of a "technical fault".

Using their Twitter feed, Clydelink initially forecast that the ferry would return to service on Friday, but shortly before 2pm on Friday a further tweet was posted stating "Normal service planned to resume during Monday", with the previous tweet referring to a Friday resumption deleted.

The Advertiser understands the Maritime and Coastguard Agency was due to inspect the vessel first thing on Friday morning.

Responding to user @harrycathcart, who referred to the company's "earlier confident message re Friday", Clydelink stated simply: "We anticipated returning to service today, it will now be Monday."

A replacement bus service is operating over a 50-mile round trip by road, though the times of the bus service have changed on an almost daily basis: at first there were five departures a day from Gourock and four from Kilcreggan, but that was then reduced to four and three respectively, and only three bus journeys will operate in each direction on Saturday.

It's the second lengthy disruption to the service in just over a month, following a period of almost a week in early June when the ferry did not run after MCA inspectors found a series of faults with the vessel.

The area's MSP, Jackie Baillie, said: “I have had further conversations with SPT to demand reassurances that everything that can be done is being done to get the Kilcreggan ferry service back up and running again.

“Only the provision of a back-up boat could guarantee a reliable service and I have asked SPT to work with Clydelink to approach other ferry operators to consider all the options for when the vessel breaks down again in future."